Science & Health News

[cintrix]

I still can't master the tv remote control - I am a Remote Retard.

[sideeki]

Why Nobody Likes a Smart Machine
By JOHN TIERNEY
At a Best Buy store in Midtown Manhattan, Donald Norman was previewing a scene about to be re-enacted in living rooms around the world.

He was playing with one of this year’s hot Christmas gifts, a digital photo frame from Kodak. It had a wondrous list of features — it could display your pictures, send them to a printer, put on a slide show, play your music — and there was probably no consumer on earth better prepared to put it through its paces.

Dr. Norman, a cognitive scientist who is a professor at Northwestern, has been the maestro of gizmos since publishing “The Design of Everyday Things,” his 1988 critique of VCRs no one could program, doors that couldn’t be opened without instructions and other technologies that seemed designed to drive humans crazy.

Besides writing scholarly analyses of gadgets, Dr. Norman has also been testing and building them for companies like Apple and Hewlett-Packard. One of his consulting gigs involved an early version of this very technology on the shelf at Best Buy: a digital photo frame developed for a startup company that was later acquired by Kodak.

“This is not the frame I designed,” Dr. Norman muttered as he tried to navigate the menu on the screen. “It’s bizarre. You have to look at the front while pushing buttons on the back that you can’t see, but there’s a long row of buttons that all feel the same. Are you expected to memorize them?”

He finally managed to switch the photo in the frame to vertical from horizontal. Then he spent five minutes trying to switch it back.

“I give up,” he said with a shrug. “In any design, once you learn how to do something once, you should be able to do it again. This is really horrible.”

So the bad news is that despite two decades of lectures from Dr. Norman on the virtue of “user-centered” design and the danger of a disease called “featuritis,” people will still be cursing at their gifts this Christmas.

And the worse news is that the gadgets of Christmas future will be even harder to command, because we and our machines are about to go through a rocky transition as the machines get smarter and take over more tasks. As Dr. Norman says in his new book, “The Design of Future Things,” what we’ll have here is a failure to communicate.

“It would be fine,” he told me, “if we had intelligent devices that would work well without any human intervention. My clothes dryer is a good example: it figures out when the clothes are dry and stops. But we are moving toward intelligent machines that still require human supervision and correction, and that is where the danger lies — machines that fight with us over how to do things.”

Can this relationship be saved? Until recently, Dr. Norman believed in the favorite tool of couples therapists: better dialogue. But he has concluded that dialogue isn’t the answer, because we’re too different from the machines.

You can’t explain to your car’s navigation system why you dislike its short, efficient route because the scenery is ugly. Your refrigerator may soon know exactly what food it contains, what you’ve already eaten today and what your calorie limit is, but it won’t be capable of an intelligent dialogue about your need for that piece of cheesecake.

To get along with machines, Dr. Norman suggests we build them using a lesson from Delft, a town in the Netherlands where cyclists whiz through crowds of pedestrians in the town square. If the pedestrians try to avoid an oncoming cyclist, they’re liable to surprise him and collide, but the cyclist can steer around them just fine if they ignore him and keep walking along at the same pace. “Behaving predictably, that’s the key,” Dr. Norman said. “If our smart devices were understandable and predictable, we wouldn’t dislike them so much.” Instead of trying to anticipate our actions, or debating the best plan, machines should let us know clearly what they’re doing.

Instead of beeping and buzzing mysteriously, or flashing arrays of red and white lights, machines should be more like Dr. Norman’s ideal of clear communication: a tea kettle that burbles as the water heats and lets out a steam whistle when it’s finished. He suggests using natural sounds and vibrations that don’t require explanatory labels or a manual no one will ever read.

But no matter how clearly the machines send their signals, Dr. Norman expects that we’ll have a hard time adjusting to them. He wasn’t surprised when I took him on a tour of the new headquarters of The New York Times and he kept hearing complaints from people about the smart elevators and window shades, or the automatic water faucets that refuse to dispense water. (For Dr. Norman’s analysis of our office building of the future, go to nytimes.com/tierneylab.)

As he watched our window shades mysteriously lowering themselves, having detected some change in cloud cover that eluded us, Dr. Norman recalled the fight that he and his colleagues at Northwestern waged against the computerized shades that kept letting sunlight glare on their computer screens.

“It took us a year and a half to get the administration to let us control the shades in our own offices,” he said. “Badly designed so-called intelligent technology makes us feel out of control, helpless. No wonder we hate it.” (For all our complaining, at The Times we have nicer shades that let us override the computer.)

Even when the bugs have been worked out of a new technology, designers will still turn out junk if they don’t get feedback from users — a common problem when their customer is a large bureaucracy. Engineers have known how to build a simple alarm clock for more than a century, so why can’t you figure out how to set the one in your hotel room? Because, Dr. Norman said, the clock was bought by someone in the hotel’s purchasing department who has never tried to navigate all those buttons at 1 in the morning.

“Our frustrations with machines are not going to be solved with better machines,” Dr. Norman said. “Most of our technological difficulties come from the way we interact with our machines and with other people. The technology part of the problem is usually pretty simple. The people part is complicated.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/science/18tier.html?ex=1355634000&en=3d202fb520b967d9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[sideeki]

Study explains pregnancy's balancing act
Female spine evolved to bear added weight
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff | December 13, 2007

CAMBRIDGE - A hugely pregnant woman teetering along is actually a sublime feat of evolutionary engineering - ages of adaptations have gone into her backbone to make sure she doesn't fall on her face, scientists say.

Women's spines have evolved differently from men's to better carry the weight and awkward proportions of pregnancy, according to research being published today by the journal Nature. The study sheds new light on how humanity's ancestors adapted biologically to meet the rigors of walking upright.

"Several million years of adaptation went into making [human] females able to move more easily, comfortably, and safely during pregnancy," said Katherine K. Whitcome, a Harvard anthropologist and one of the authors of the study, which also found that the female spines of our hominid forebears were markedly different from those of apes. That suggests changes in the spine represent a crucial part of human evolution.

Among other things, the research implies, those changes allowed pregnant hominids to walk without tipping over.

That idea might seem ludicrous, but bipedalism - lumbering around on two feet - itself is an evolutionary feature so strange that anthropologists still can't fully explain why humans assumed the vertical position. But most scientists believe it was the ability to walk and run upright, far more than brain power, that allowed predecessors of modern humans to break from the apes and gradually emerge as the planet's dominant species.

The shape of women's spines and vertebrae represents one of the evolutionary distinctions between humans and apes, according to the new research. Nature favored the adaptation, the scientists say, because it reduced stress on the female spine and it lent extra spryness when foraging for food or dodging the fangs and claws of rival carnivores.

"Being bipedal is a big part of being human. But it's also a pretty bizarre evolution," said Daniel E. Lieberman, professor of biological anthropology at Harvard. "It created a lot of problems that had to be resolved by natural selection. Among them, how were pregnant women going to carry that extra weight without falling over?"

Human spines have an unusual forward curve in the lumbar region of the lower back. Starting more than 2 million years ago, in the early hominid ancestor called Australopithecus, spinal curvature in females spread across more vertebrae than in males. Moreover, the joints between the vertebrae became larger in females and assumed a different shape to offset "shear forces" - the sideways grinding generated by the weight of pregnancy.

This shifted the load of baby-to-be in a way that reduced stress on the spine while also giving pregnant women greater stability.

"Without the adaptation, pregnancy would have placed a heavier burden on back muscles, causing considerable pain and fatigue," said Liza J. Shapiro, a University of Texas anthropologist who conducted the study with Whitcome and Lieberman.

The female-male difference in spinal curvature does not appear in chimpanzees, meaning it was an adaptation that occurred after human ancestors started walking upright - a fact of significance for understanding human evolution.

"This broadens our understanding of how our success as a species came to include the vertebral column," Whitcome said. "These changes not only made females more comfortable, they provided an evolutionary edge."

The changes in spinal structure started long before humans were even human. Australopithecines were the first vaguely humanlike beings to walk upright, according to the fossil record. This locomotion was probably an adaptive response to dwindling jungles in Africa - the new creatures were able to traverse wider savannas and seek a broader variety of food.

These were tough times: Pregnant women had to be agile enough to escape the jaws of predators and also forage for wild tubers up until nearly the moment of giving birth. So a spine adaptation that allowed easier movement - in addition to not tipping over - was critical in the progression toward modern humanity.

"These adaptations, over time, meant life or death for hunter-gatherer societies," Lieberman said.

Such fleetness is perhaps not absolutely necessary for modern women, but stability and relative comfort remain a happy legacy of hominid evolution. An age-old saying has it that, for women, being born and succumbing to death are just brackets for a life of backache. But it could have been a lot worse, scientists say.

"Any mother can attest to the awkwardness of standing and walking while balancing pregnancy weight in front of the body," Shapiro said. "Yet our research shows their spines have evolved to make pregnancy safer and less painful than it might have been if these adaptations had not occurred."

Colin Nickerson can be reached at [e-mail].

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/12/13/study_explains_pregnancys_balancing_act/

[sideeki]

YELLOWSTONE RISING

Volcano Inflating with Molten Rock at Record Rate

Nov. 8, 2007 - The Yellowstone "supervolcano" rose at a record rate since mid-2004, likely because a Los Angeles-sized, pancake-shaped blob of molten rock was injected 6 miles beneath the slumbering giant, University of Utah scientists report in the journal Science.

"There is no evidence of an imminent volcanic eruption or hydrothermal explosion. That's the bottom line," says seismologist Robert B. Smith, lead author of the study and professor of geophysics at the University of Utah. "A lot of calderas [giant volcanic craters] worldwide go up and down over decades without erupting."

The upward movement of the Yellowstone caldera floor - almost 3 inches (7 centimeters) per year for the past three years - is more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923, says the study in the Nov. 9 issue of Science by Smith, geophysics postdoctoral associate Wu-Lung Chang and colleagues.

"Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock," Smith says. "But we have no idea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again," he adds.

The magma chamber beneath Yellowstone National Park is a not a chamber of molten rock, but a sponge-like body with molten rock between areas of hot, solid rock.

Chang, the study's first author, says: "To say if there will be a magma [molten rock] eruption or hydrothermal [hot water] eruption, we need more independent data."

Calderas such as Yellowstone, California's Long Valley (site of the Mammoth Lakes ski area) and Italy's Campi Flegrei (near Naples) huff upward and puff downward repeatedly for decades to tens of thousands of years without catastrophic eruptions.

Smith and Chang conducted the study with University of Utah geophysics doctoral students Jamie M. Farrell and Christine Puskas, and with geophysicist Charles Wicks, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.

Yellowstone: A Gigantic Volcano Atop a Hotspot

Yellowstone is North America's largest volcanic field, produced by a "hotspot" - a gigantic plume of hot and molten rock - that begins at least 400 miles beneath Earth's surface and rises to 30 miles underground, where it widens to about 300 miles across. There, blobs of magma or molten rock occasionally break off from the top of the plume, and rise farther, resupplying the magma chamber beneath the Yellowstone caldera.
Previous research indicates the magma chamber begins about 5 miles beneath Yellowstone and extends down to a depth of at least 10 miles. Its heat powers Yellowstone's geysers and hot springs - the world's largest hydrothermal field.

As Earth's crust moved southwest over the Yellowstone hotspot during the past 16.5 million years, it produced more than 140 cataclysmic explosions known as caldera eruptions, the largest but rarest volcanic eruptions known. Remnants of ancient calderas reveal the eruptions began at the Oregon-Idaho-Nevada border some 16.5 million years ago, then moved progressively northeast across what is now the Snake River Plain.

The hotspot arrived under the Yellowstone area sometime after about 4 million years ago, producing gargantuan eruptions there 2 million, 1.3 million and 642,000 years ago. These eruptions were 2,500, 280 and 1,000 times bigger, respectively, than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The eruptions covered as much as half the continental United States with inches to feet of volcanic ash.

The most recent giant eruption created the 40-mile-by-25-mile oval-shaped Yellowstone caldera. The caldera walls have eroded away in many areas - although they remain visible in the northwest portion of the park. Yellowstone Lake sits roughly half inside and half outside the eroded caldera. Many smaller volcanic eruptions occurred at Yellowstone between and since the three big blasts, most recently 70,000 years ago. Smaller steam and hot water explosions have been more frequent and more recent.

Measuring a Volcano Getting Pumped Up

In the new study, the scientists measured uplift of the Yellowstone caldera from July 2004 through the end of 2006 with two techniques:

Twelve Global Positioning System (GPS) ground stations that receive timed signals from satellites, making it possible to measure ground uplift precisely.
The European Space Agency's Envisat satellite, which bounces radar waves off the Yellowstone caldera's floor.
The measurements showed that from mid-2004 through 2006, the Yellowstone caldera floor rose as fast as 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) per year - and by a total of 7 inches (18 centimeters) during the 30-month period, Chang says.

"The uplift is still going on today but at a little slower rate," says Smith, adding there is no way to know when it will stop.

Smith says the fastest rate of uplift previously observed at Yellowstone was about 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) per year between 1976 and 1985.

He says that Yellowstone's recent upward motion may seem small, but is twice as fast as the average rate of horizontal movement along California's San Andreas fault.

The current uplift is faster than ever observed at Yellowstone, but may not be the fastest ever, since humans weren't around for its three supervolcano eruptions.

Chang, Smith and colleagues conducted computer simulations to determine what changes in shape of the underground magma chamber best explained the recent uplift.

The simulations or "modeling" suggested the molten rock injected since mid-2004 is a nearly horizontal slab - known to geologists as a sill - that rests about 6 miles (10 kilometers) beneath Yellowstone National Park. The slab sits within and near the top of the pre-existing magma chamber, which resembles two anvil-shaped blobs expanding upward from a common base.

Smith describes the slab's computer-simulated shape as "kind of like a mattress" about 38 miles long and 12 miles wide, but only tens or hundreds of yards thick.

In reality, he believes the slab resembles a large, spongy pancake formed as molten rock injected from below spread out near the top of the magma chamber.

The pancake of molten rock has an area of about 463 square miles, compared with 469 square miles of land for the City of Los Angeles.

Smith and colleagues believe steam and hot water contribute to uplift of the Yellowstone caldera, particularly during some previous episodes, but evidence indicates molten rock is responsible for most of the current uplift.

Chang says that when rising molten rock reaches the top of the magma chamber, it starts to crystallize and solidify, releasing hot water and gases, pressuring the magma chamber. But gases and steam compress more easily than molten rock, so much greater volumes would be required to explain the volcano's inflation, the researchers say.

Also, large volumes of steam and hot water usually are no deeper than 2 miles, so they are unlikely to be inflating the magma chamber 6 miles underground, Smith adds.

Ups and Downs at Yellowstone

Conventional surveying of Yellowstone began in 1923. Measurements showed the caldera floor rose 40 inches during 1923-1984, and then fell 8 inches during 1985-1995.

GPS data showed the Yellowstone caldera floor sank 4.4 inches during 1987-1995. From 1995 to 2000, the caldera rose again, but the uplift was greatest - 3 inches - at Norris Geyser Basin, just outside the caldera's northwest rim.

During 2000-2003, the northwest area rose another 1.4 inches, but the caldera floor itself sank about 1.1 inches. The trend continued during the first half of 2004. Then, in July 2004, the caldera floor began its rapid rate of uplift, followed three months later by sinking of the Norris area that continued until mid-2006.

Smith believes that uplift of the middle of the caldera decreased pressure within rocks along the edges of the giant crater, "so it allowed fluids to flow into the area of increased porosity." That, in turn, triggered small earthquakes along the edge of the "pancake" of magma. The amount of hot water flowing out of the deflated Norris area is much smaller than the volume of magma injected beneath the caldera, Smith says.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Brinson Foundation.

This news release and downloadable, high-resolution graphics are available at:
http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=102507-1

[toddao]

Energizer Batteries Exposed: NewsTarget Investigation Reveals Truth About "D" Rechargeable Batteries


http://www.newstarget.com/022193.html

[toddao]

Amazing British invention creates MORE energy than you put into it - and could soon be warming your home


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=481996&in_page_id=1965

[John266]

Fluoride Damages the Thyroid, Report ShowsLast update: 9/24/2007 8:38:00 AMNEW YORK, Sept 24, 2007 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- There is clear evidence that small amounts of fluoride, at or near levels added to U.S. water supplies, present potential risks to the thyroid gland, according to the National Research Council's (NRC) first-ever published review of the fluoride/thyroid literature.(A) Fluoride, in the form of silicofluorides, injected into 2/3 of U.S. public water supplies, ostensibly to reduce tooth decay, was never safety-tested.(B) "Many Americans are exposed to fluoride in the ranges associated with thyroid effects, especially for people with iodine deficiency," says Kathleen Thiessen, PhD, co-author of the government-sponsored NRC report. "The recent decline in iodine intake in the U.S. could contribute to increased toxicity of fluoride for some individuals," says Thiessen. "A low level of thyroid hormone can increase the risk of cardiac disease, high cholesterol, depression and, in pregnant woman, decreased intelligence of offspring," said Thiessen.(C) Common thyroid symptoms include fatigue, weight gain, constipation, fuzzy thinking, low blood pressure, fluid retention, depression, body pain, slow reflexes, and more. It's estimated that 59 million Americans have thyroid conditions.(D) Robert Carton, PhD, an environmental scientist who worked for over 30 years for the U.S. government including managing risk assessments on high priority toxic chemicals, says "fluoride has detrimental effects on the thyroid gland of healthy males at 3.5 mg a day. With iodine deficiency, the effect level drops to 0.7 milligrams/day for an average male."(E) (1.0 mg/L fluoride is in most water supplies)
Among many others, the NRC Report cites human studies which show -- fluoride concentrations in thyroids exceeding that found in other soft tissues except kidney -- an association between endemic goiter and fluoride exposure or enamel fluorosis in human populations -- fluoride adversely affects thyroid and parathyroid hormones, which affect bone health"If you have a thyroid problem, avoiding fluoride may be a good preventive health measure for you," writes Drs' Richard and Karilee Shames in "Thyroid Power."(F) Over, 900 Physicians, Dentists, Scientists, Academics and Environmentalists urge Congress to stop water fluoridation until Congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation is ineffective and has serious health risks. () Please sign the petition and Congressional letter to support these professionals "Fluoride can harm bones, teeth, kidneys, the brain and more," says lawyer Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation.
References: Contact: Paul Beeber, 516-433-8882, [e-mail] SOURCE NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation
Copyright (C) 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved Copyright © 2007 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved. Please see

[John266]

cure your own cancer:

Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer?
Monday, Sep. 17, 2007 By RICHARD FRIEBE Martin Jepp / zefa / CorbisArticle ToolsPrintEmailSphereAddThisRSS The women's hospital at the University of Wurzburg used to be the biggest of its kind in Germany. Its former size is part of the historical burden it carries — countless women were involuntarily sterilized here when it stood in the geographical center of Nazi Germany.

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Today, the capacity of the historical building overlooking the college town, where the baroque and mid-20th-century concrete stand in a jarring mix, has been downsized considerably. And the experiments within its walls are of a very different nature.

Since early 2007, Dr. Melanie Schmidt and biologist Ulrike Kammerer, both at the Wurzburg hospital, have been enrolling cancer patients in a Phase I clinical study of a most unexpected medication: fat. Their trial puts patients on a so-called ketogenic diet, which eliminates almost all carbohydrates, including sugar, and provides energy only from high-quality plant oils, such as hempseed and linseed oil, and protein from soy and animal products.

What sounds like yet another version of the Atkins craze is actually based on scientific evidence that dates back nearly 80 years. In 1924, the German Nobel laureate Otto Warburg first published his observations of a common feature he saw in fast-growing tumors: unlike healthy cells, which generate energy by metabolizing sugar in their mitochondria, cancer cells appeared to fuel themselves exclusively through glycolysis, a less-efficient means of creating energy through the fermentation of sugar in the cytoplasm. Warburg believed that this metabolic switch was the primary cause of cancer, a theory that he strove, unsuccessfully, to establish until his death in 1970.

To the two researchers in Wurzburg, the theoretical debate about what is now known as the Warburg effect — whether it is the primary cause of cancer or a mere metabolic side effect — is irrelevant. What they believe is that it can be therapeutically exploited. The theory is simple: If most aggressive cancers rely on the fermentation of sugar for growing and dividing, then take away the sugar and they should stop spreading. Meanwhile, normal body and brain cells should be able to handle the sugar starvation; they can switch to generating energy from fatty molecules called ketone bodies — the body's main source of energy on a fat-rich diet — an ability that some or most fast-growing and invasive cancers seem to lack.

The Wurzburg trial, funded by the Otzberg, Germany–based diet food company Tavartis, which supplies the researchers with food packages, is still in its early, difficult stages. "One big problem we have," says Schmidt, sitting uncomfortably on a small, wooden chair in the crammed tea kitchen of Kammerer's lab, "is that we are only allowed to enroll patients who have completely run out of all other therapeutic options." That means that most people in the study are faring very badly to begin with. All have exhausted traditional treatments, such as surgery, radiation and chemo, and even some alternative ones like hyperthermia and autohemotherapy. Patients in the study have pancreatic tumors and aggressive brain tumors called glioblastomas, among other cancers; participants are recruited primarily because their tumors show high glucose metabolism in PET scans.

Four of the patients were so ill, they died within the first week of the study. Others, says Schmidt, dropped out because they found it hard to stick to the no-sweets diet: "We didn't expect this to be such a big problem, but a considerable number of patients left the study because they were unable or unwilling to renounce soft drinks, chocolate and so on."

The good news is that for five patients who were able to endure three months of carb-free eating, the results were positive: the patients stayed alive, their physical condition stabilized or improved and their tumors slowed or stopped growing, or shrunk. These early findings have elicited "very positive reactions and an increased interest from colleagues," Kammerer says, while cautioning that the results are preliminary and that the study was not designed to test efficacy, but to identify side effects and determine the safety of the diet-based approach. So far, it's impossible to predict whether it will really work. It is already evident that it doesn't always: two patients recently left the study because their tumors kept growing, even though they stuck to the diet.

Past studies, however, offer some hope. The first human experiments with the ketogenic diet were conducted in two children with brain cancer by Case Western Reserve oncologist Linda Nebeling, now with the National Cancer Institute. Both children responded well to the high-fat diet. When Nebeling last got in contact with the patients' parents in 2005, a decade after her study, one of the subjects was still alive and still on a high-fat diet. It would be scientifically unsound to draw general conclusions from her study, says Nebeling, but some experts, such as Boston College's Thomas Seyfried, say it's still a remarkable achievement. Seyfried has long called for clinical trials of low-carb, high-fat diets against cancer, and has been trying to push research in the field with animal studies: His results suggest that mice survive cancers, including brain cancer, much longer when put on high-fat diets, even longer when the diets are also calorie-restricted. "Clinical studies are highly warranted," he says, attributing the lack of human studies to the medical establishment, which he feels is single-minded in its approach to treatment, and opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, which doesn't stand to profit much from a dietetic treatment for cancer.

The tide appears to be shifting. A study similar to the trial in Wurzburg is now under way in Amsterdam, and another, slated to begin in mid-October, is currently awaiting final approval by the ethics committee at the University Hospital in Tubingen, Germany. There, in the renowned old research institution in the German southwest, neuro-oncologist Dr. Johannes Rieger wants to enroll patients with glioblastoma and astrocytoma, aggressive brain cancers for which there are hardly any sustainable therapies. Cell culture and animal experiments suggest that these tumors should respond particularly well to low-carb, high-fat diets. And, usually, these patients are physically sound, since the cancer affects only the brain. "We hope, and we have reason to believe, that it will work," says Rieger.

Still, none of the researchers currently studying ketogenic diets, including Rieger, expects it to deliver anything close to a universal treatment for cancer. And none of them wants to create exaggerated hopes for a miracle cure in seriously ill patients, who may never benefit from the approach. But the recent findings are difficult to ignore. Robert Weinberg, a biology professor at MIT's Whitehead Institute who discovered the first human oncogene, has long been critical of therapeutic approaches based on the Warburg effect, and has certainly dismissed it as a primary cause of cancer. Nevertheless, he conceded, in an email, for tumors that have been affected by the ketogenic diet in animal models, "there might be some reason to go ahead with a Phase I clinical trial, especially for patients who have no other realistic therapeutic options."

Richard Friebe is executive editor of the German science magazine SZ Wissen

[John266]

new truck engine

Turbine Truck Engines, Inc. Revolutionary Turbine Engine Surpasses Horsepower ExpectationsLast update: 9/13/2007 3:38:01 PMDELAND, Fla., Sep 13, 2007 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The Board of Directors of Turbine Truck Engines, Inc. (TTE) (TTEG) are pleased to announce that preliminary testing of the 540 hp Prototype engine has surpassed initial expectations. Engine Testing Results Alpha Engines Corporation has completed an extensive barrage of test runs regarding the 540 hp Prototype Detonation Cycle Gas Turbine (DCGT). The results have established that the engine has easily surpassed the initial estimated output of 540 horsepower and could be capable of producing 700 plus horsepower. Mr. Robert Scragg of Alpha and Mr. Michael Patterson of TTE are diligently compiling a performance data report to be published following completion. More announcements and updates will be forthcoming. "We are very impressed with the results particularly concerning horsepower output," stated Mr. Michael Rouse, CEO. "It has taken an amazing amount of hard work to get to this point but these remarkable test results justify the journey." Ongoing Testing Alpha Engines Corp. is under contract with TTE to design, construct and test the 540hp Prototype Engine. Alpha is currently focused on load testing the engine at the 570 hp output range. "I am pleased that the results go beyond our expectations. We remain especially optimistic concerning the ability of this engine to satisfy many horsepower applications," commented Mr. Robert Scragg, owner of Alpha Engines Corp. and inventor of the DCGT. About Turbine Truck Engines Inc.: Turbine Truck Engines, Inc. is a technology company focused on the development, manufacture and testing of its New Energy and Environmental Efficient Truck Engine intended for mass market in the United States and abroad. This new engine design can utilize any known fuel source (gasoline, diesel, propane, natural gas, hydrogen, methanol, ethanol or LPG) or fuel mixture, yet needs zero coolant, lube oil, filters, or pumps. The unique, lightweight turbine design has few moving parts, significantly reducing maintenance costs. The innovative cyclic detonation process produces a complete combustion of fuel-oxidation mixtures, resulting in greater fuel economy and fewer harmful exhaust emissions. For more information concerning Turbine Truck, Engines Inc., kindly visit our website at . About Alpha Engines Corporation: Alpha Engines Corporation is a technology company specializing in the theory, design, testing and registration of its "New Age" products. In 1997, Alpha Engines filed a patent on the Detonation Cycle Gas Turbine Engine resulting in the patent being granted in 1999. In 2000, Alpha granted Turbine Truck Engines, Inc. exclusive license rights to manufacture and market the DCGT 540 horsepower engine as a new, energy efficient and cost effective alternative heavy-duty truck engine. Safe Harbor: This release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The risks and uncertainties that may affect the operations, performance development and results of the company's business include, but are not limited to, fluctuations in financial results, availability and customer acceptance of our products and services, the impact of competitive products, services and pricing, general market trends and conditions, and other risks detailed in the company's SEC reports. SOURCE: Turbine Truck Engines, Inc.
Turbine Truck Engines

[sideeki]

The Art of Mapping on the Run
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 9, 2007

The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World
RETREATING The Aral Sea in Central Asia, left, in 1967, has shrunk by 75 percent to its present size, right, because of water diversions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/weekinreview/08basic.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin


graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/09/weekinreview/08basic1.600.jpg>


It used to be that updated editions of world atlases mainly tracked the shifting of borders and changes in the names of cities and countries determined by politics, diplomacy or war.

The surface of the planet itself was a relatively constant template in the background. You could render it in more detail with, say, better satellite data, but the basics didn’t change much.

Now, though, the accelerating and intensifying impact of human activities is visibly altering the planet, requiring ever more frequent redrawing not only of political boundaries, but of the shape of Earth’s features themselves.

How so?

In the new edition of “The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World” (Times Books, London, 2007), for instance, there are before-and-after views of the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth-largest lake. It shriveled as Soviet-era irrigation projects siphoned off the rivers that replenished it. A dam completed in 2005 now prevents water from flowing out of the lake’s northern lobe, which is expanding as a result.

The lake’s vanishing and rebirth, easily visible from space, are the work of people.

“The impactful thing is the size of some of these changing features,” Mick Ashworth, the editor in chief of the atlas, said in a telephone interview from England.

The atlas charts the shifting coastline of Bangladesh, for example, where land has been lost to rising sea levels. It identifies islands that are likely to be subsumed by the seas, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands among them, and coastal communities that may be forced to move. One of them is Shishmaref, Alaska, located on a narrow island along the Bering Strait, where the break-up of sea ice has left the village more exposed to storms and the sea is advancing at a rate of 10 feet a year.

Some scientists focused on global environmental change say it is no surprise that atlases, in essence, are becoming autobiographical, reflecting the reality that the physical Earth is increasingly what the human species makes of it.

The pace of change will only accelerate over the next two generations, many earth scientists and demographers say, as the human population and its “footprint” — through growing appetites for energy, water and food — crest before leveling off later in the century as communities age and technology advances.

William Clark, an expert at Harvard on global environmental trends, said it was significant that, “even the most conservative of print atlases increasingly go beyond a little map that treats ‘world climates’ or ‘world vegetation’ the way it treats mountain ranges” — as permanent fixtures.

All of this means a lot more work for atlas makers, who now have to keep up not only with political change, but also with large-scale effects of people on the home planet.

Mr. Ashworth said databases tracked by a staff of 50 cartographers are updated every three and a half minutes.

“We can literally see environmental disasters unfolding before our eyes,” he said in a news release last week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/weekinreview/08basic.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

[John266]

Renowned Scientists Issue Wake-up Call on EMF and RF Radiation HazardsLast update: 8/30/2007 11:00:00 AMALBANY, N.Y., Aug 30, 2007 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- An international working group of renowned scientists, researchers and public health policy professionals (The BioInitiative Working Group) has released its report on electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and health. It raises serious concerns about the safety of existing public limits that regulate how much EMF is allowable from power lines, cell phones, and many other sources of EMF exposure in daily life. The report documents scientific evidence raising worries about health impacts including childhood leukemia (from power lines and other electrical exposures), brain tumors and acoustic neuromas (from cell and cordless phones) and Alzheimer's disease. There is evidence that EMFs are a risk factor for both childhood and adult cancers. EMFs from such sources as electric power lines, interior wiring and grounding of buildings and appliances are linked to increased risks for childhood leukemia and may set the stage for adult cancers later in life. The BioInitiative Report () will be released on Friday, August 31, 2007 documents the scientific evidence that power line EMF exposure is responsible for hundreds of new cases of childhood leukemia every year in the United States and around the world. Wireless technologies that rely on radiofrequency radiation (RF) to send emails and voice communication are thousands of times stronger than levels reported to cause sleep disorders, headaches, problems with memory and concentration and other adverse physical symptoms. Public health expert and co-editor of the Report Dr. David O. Carpenter, Director, Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany, New York states: This report stands as a wake-up call that long-term exposure to some kinds of EMFs may cause serious health effects. Good public health planning is needed now to prevent cancers and neurological diseases linked to exposure to power lines and other sources of EMFs. We need to educate the public and our decision makers that business as usual is unacceptable. Co-editor Cindy Sage of Sage Associates asserts: Public health and EMF policy experts have now given their opinion of the weight of evidence. The existing FCC and international limits for public and occupational exposure to EMFs and RF radiation are not protective of public health. New public safety limits and limits on further deployment of risky technologies are warranted based on the total weight of evidence. SOURCE The BioInitiative Working Group
Copyright (C) 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved Copyright © 2007 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved. Please see

[John266]

WOW

MUSC Researchers Discover Garlic Kills Brain Cancer CellsLast update: 8/27/2007 4:05:00 PMScientists Determine that Garlic Compounds Eradicate Brain Cancer Cells CHARLESTON, S.C., Aug 27, 2007 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- For the first time, organo-sulfur compounds found in garlic have been identified as effective against glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor equivalent to a death sentence within a short period after diagnosis. Swapan Ray, Ph.D.(MUSC Neurosciences/Neurology associate professor), Naren Banik, Ph.D. (MUSC Neurosciences/Neurology professor), and Arabinda Das, Ph.D. (MUSC Neurosciences/Neurology post-doctoral fellow) studied three pure organo-sulfur compounds (DAS, DADS, and DATS) from garlic and the interaction with human glioblastoma cells. All three compounds demonstrated efficacy in eradicating brain cancer cells, but DATS proved to be the most effective. The study will be published in the September issue of the American Cancer Society's journal, Cancer. Cancer cells have a high metabolism and require much energy for rapid growth. In this study, garlic compounds produced reactive oxygen species in brain cancer cells, essentially gorging them to death with activation of multiple death cascades. "This research highlights the great promise of plant-originated compounds as natural medicine for controlling the malignant growth of human brain tumor cells," Ray said. "More studies are needed in animal models of brain tumors before application of this therapeutic strategy to brain tumor patients." Ray and Banik are optimistic about the possible applications of their discovery to patient care. "Our basic studies will eventually be translated to clinics for patient care. We may have to wait several years before its application to humans, but the significance of this discovery is enormous," Banik said. "The benefits from this research to brain cancer patients will bring great satisfaction to researchers and clinicians who are trying to find a successful treatment for this devastating cancer." Garlic-derived organo-sulfur compounds are small molecules that would not necessarily require complicated methods of delivery for treating brain tumor patients, the scientists said, and their natural origin is probably better for the human body than synthetic treatment options. To take advantage of any potential anti-cancer benefits from garlic now, certain rules apply. Ray said to cut and peel a piece of fresh garlic and let it sit for fifteen minutes before eating or cooking it. This time allows for the release of an enzyme (allinase) that produces the anti-cancer compounds. Eating too much garlic can cause diarrhea, allergies, and internal bleeding, so it is important to monitor garlic consumption. SOURCE Medical University of South Carolina
Copyright (C) 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved Copyright © 2007 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms

[John266]

now I want to build a new house so I can use it.

[Mariner*]

Pretty interesting stuff: http://www.aerogel.com/

[originunknown]

Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

Sunday, August 19, 2007

(08-19) 21:32 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life — made from the basic chemicals in DNA — may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:

_ A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.

_ A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.

_ A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step — creating a cell membrane — is "not a big problem." Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.

Szostak is also optimistic about the next step — getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system.

His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.

"We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened," Szostak said.

In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases — adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T) — molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.

Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok," but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem.

"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."

[originunknown]

Forget eating your greens: red and blue foods are the cancer fighters

· Health properties detected in new laboratory tests
· Pigment can slow growth or even kill tumour cells

* Ian Sample, science correspondent
* The Guardian
* Monday August 20 2007

Natural pigments that give certain fruit and vegetables a rich red, purple or blue colour act as powerful anti-cancer agents, according to a study by American scientists.

The compounds, found in foods such as aubergines, red cabbage, elderberries and bilberries, restricted the growth of cancer cells and in some cases killed them off entirely, leaving healthy cells unharmed.

The study combined laboratory tests on human cancer cells with experiments on animals that were designed to see whether a diet rich in the foods made a difference to their risk of developing cancer.

Foods with the highest levels of the compounds were most effective at slowing cancer growth, with exotic purple corn and chokeberries stopping the growth of colon cancer cells and killing 20% in lab tests. Foods less enriched with the pigments, such as radishes and black carrots, slowed the growth of colon cancer cells by 50% to 80%.

The findings bring scientists closer to unravelling the key ingredients responsible for giving fruit and vegetables their cancer-fighting properties.

Because the pigments, which belong to a class of antioxidant compounds known as anthocyanins, are not easily absorbed by the bloodstream, they travel through the stomach to the gastrointestinal tract, where they are taken up by surrounding tissues.

Their survival through to the lower part of the intestine may be the key to their role in preventing cancers in the tract, the scientists believe.

Researchers led by Monica Giusti, an expert in plant nutrients at Ohio State University, extracted anthocyanins from a variety of exotic and more common fruits and vegetables that all had a deep red, blue or purple hue and added them to flasks containing a suspension of human colon cancer cells.

When the team calculated how much of each extract was needed to reduce cancer cell growth by 50%, they found anthocyanin from purple corn to be the most potent. Chokeberries and bilberries were nearly as effective, while radish anthocyanin required nine times as much - or 131 micrograms per millilitre of cancer cell solution to cut cell growth by half.

In a second study, the researchers fed rats with colon cancer a diet of anthocyanin extracts from bilberries and chokeberries, which are most often used as flavourings in jams and fruit drinks. Colon tumours in the rats fell by 60% to 70% compared with a control group that were not given anthocyanin.

"These foods contain many compounds and we're just starting to figure out what they are and which ones provide the best health effects," said Dr Giusti.

"All fruits and vegetables that are rich in anthocyanins have compounds that can slow down the growth of colon cancer cells, whether in experiments in laboratory dishes or inside the body."

The research was presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

The team are now investigating whether it is possible to modify the structure of the pigment compounds to make them even more potent. Tentative results so far suggest that grafting an extra sugar or acid molecule to the anthocyanins improved their effectiveness.

The work is part of a long-term investigation aimed at a greater understanding of the 600 anthocyanins found in nature. "We're just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding how the body absorbs and uses these different structures," Dr Giusti said.

In June, market researchers reported that sales of anthocyanin-rich blueberries had doubled in the past two years. The berries joined a growing list of what associations marketing the products call "superfoods", alongside oily fish, brazil nuts and tomatoes. Anthocyanins have previously been linked to helping towards a healthy heart and with treating skin conditions.


Source: Guardian UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/20/sciencenews.cancer

[John266]

The Sunday TimesAugust 19, 2007

Scientists hail ‘frozen smoke’ as material that will change worldAbul Taher
A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.

Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.

It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.”

Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil.

It was invented by an American chemist for a bet in 1931, but early versions were so brittle and costly that it was largely consigned to laboratories. It was not until a decade ago that Nasa started taking an interest in the substance and putting it to a more practical use.

In 1999 the space agency fitted its Stardust space probe with a mitt packed full of aerogel to catch the dust from a comet’s tail. It returned with a rich collection of samples last year.

In 2002 Aspen Aerogel, a company created by Nasa, produced a stronger and more flexible version of the gel. It is now being used to develop an insulated lining in space suits for the first manned mission to Mars, scheduled for 2018.

Mark Krajewski, a senior scientist at the company, believes that an 18mm layer of aerogel will be sufficient to protect astronauts from temperatures as low as -130C. “It is the greatest insulator we’ve ever seen,” he said.

Aerogel is also being tested for future bombproof housing and armour for military vehicles. In the laboratory, a metal plate coated in 6mm of aerogel was left almost unscathed by a direct dynamite blast.

It also has green credentials. Aerogel is described by scientists as the “ultimate sponge”, with millions of tiny pores on its surface making it ideal for absorbing pollutants in water.

Kanatzidis has created a new version of aerogel designed to mop up lead and mercury from water. Other versions are designed to absorb oil spills.

He is optimistic that it could be used to deal with environmental catastrophes such as the Sea Empress spillage in 1996, when 72,000 tons of crude oil were released off the coast of Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire.

Aerogel is also being used for everyday applications. Dunlop, the sports equipment company, has developed a range of squash and tennis rackets strengthened with aerogel, which are said to deliver more power.

Earlier this year Bob Stoker, 66, from Nottingham, became the first Briton to have his property insulated with aerogel. “The heating has improved significantly. I turned the thermostat down five degrees. It’s been a remarkable transformation,” he said.

Mountain climbers are also converts. Last year Anne Parmenter, a British mountaineer, climbed Everest using boots that had aerogel insoles, as well as sleeping bags padded with the material. She said at the time: “The only problem I had was that my feet were too hot, which is a great problem to have as a mountaineer.”

However, it has failed to convince the fashion world. Hugo Boss created a line of winter jackets out of the material but had to withdraw them after complaints that they were too hot.

Although aerogel is classed as a solid, 99% of the substance is made up of gas, which gives it a cloudy appearance.

Scientists say that because it has so many millions of pores and ridges, if one cubic centimetre of aerogel were unravelled it would fill an area the size of a football field.

Its nano-sized pores can not only collect pollutants like a sponge but they also act as air pockets.

Researchers believe that some versions of aerogel which are made from platinum can be used to speed up the production of hydrogen. As a result, aerogel can be used to make hydrogen-based fuels.



Have your say

The statement from Bob Stoker is stupid. If he turns the thermostat down 5 degrees, the house will be 5 degrees colder than before. Is this what he wants? The effect of insulation is to use less fuel with the thermostat set at the same temperature.

Graham Shackleton, Chorley, UK

Mr Stoker is very confused as to what a thermostat is. Turning it down 5° will result in the temperature going down 5°, no matter what the insulation is. At best, the temperature will change more slowly.

Nicolas MONNET, PARIS, FRANCE

I'd like to use this to build my dream home. Shame the narrow-mind, ultra-conservative (small c), un-imaginative, un-innovative planners on the the Council can't see the future.

Had the same battle when I tried to use a special glass, the a lower heat co-efficient then brick, to make a conservatory. (There was less heat transfer across the glass then across brick cavity walls). The same bunch of noshbag planners prevented that too.

NickT, Aldershot, Aldershot,



Have your say

[John266]

Modern living to blame for cancer epidemic
09.08.07
Add your view


The research suggests half of all cancers could be prevented by lifestyle changes


Now different types of cancer have soared
Binge drinking, reckless sunbathing and overeating are fuelling a massive rise in cancer, experts warn.

In a shocking report, they have laid bare the deadly consequences of increasingly hedonistic modern lifestyles.

Cases of mouth cancer, which is associated with smoking and drinking, have increased by almost a quarter.

Malignant melanoma - the most dangerous form of skin cancer - is up by 43 per cent in ten years as warnings to stay out of the sun are ignored.

Kidney cancer, which is much more common in smokers and the overweight, is also on the rise, the report shows.

Rates of another disease linked to obesity, womb cancer, went up by a fifth.

Cancer Research UK, which compiled the figures, said up to half of all deaths from the disease could be avoided by the use of common sense.

Lucy Morrish, of the charity, said: "While incidence rates for some cancers have fallen over the past decade, others are rising and many of these cases could be prevented if people avoided excessive sun exposure, smoking and obesity and limited their alcohol intake."

Malignant melanoma is now the seventh most common cancer and the fastest growing form of the disease.

In 2004, 8,939 Britons developed the condition, compared with 5,783 in 1995.

Although more common among women, the skin disease is now affecting large numbers of both sexes.

Since the mid-1980s, rates among men have tripled while they have doubled among women.

Sara Hiom, also of Cancer Research UK, said: "We're very concerned that cases of malignant melanoma are spiralling.

"Exposure to ultraviolet radiation in sunlight is the main cause of skin cancer.

"Most cases of this disease could be prevented if people protected themselves in the sun and took care not to burn."

Middle-class women are 2.5 times more likely to get malignant melanoma than their working-class counterparts.

For mouth cancer, most cases occur in those who smoke or chew tobacco and regularly drink alcohol.

And, although the number of smokers is falling, binge drinking is on the rise.

Mouth cancer rates have increased by 23 per cent in the past decade, up from 3,696 in 1995 to 4,769 in 2004.

The charity highlighted as especially worrying the 21 per cent rise in womb cancer from 5,018 cases ten years ago to 6,438 today.

Obese and overweight women are twice as likely to develop the disease as those of healthy weight.

This is blamed on higher than normal levels of the female hormone oestrogen in the bodies of postmenopausal women who are overweight.

Obesity and smoking also increase the risk of kidney cancer, which was found to be up 14 per cent.

Colin Waine, of the National Obesity Forum, said: "These figures just go to show the wide-reaching ramifications of obesity, which go way beyond diabetes, heart disease and stroke to several sitespecific cancers.

"As well as womb cancer, obesity has been linked to postmenopausal breast cancer, colonic cancer, bile duct cancer and pancreatic cancer.

"These figures can only get worse if we fail to halt the obesity epidemic."

Frank Soodeed, of Alcohol Concern, said: "The Government estimates that 5,000 people a year die from cancers attributable to alcohol.

"It's another reminder to stay within safe drinking limits if at all possible to minimise health risks."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said the report was a call to action.

"This is further evidence that a failure to deal with pressing public health issues now can have serious consequences later on," he added.

"This must be a priority in the NHS of the 21st century.

"We are seeing a whole generation of young people grow up with weight and alcohol problems.

"The Government must act now to tackle the enormous human and financial cost that this will bring."

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: "Labour have raided public health budgets and Government efforts are disjointed.

"It is a false economy to fail on public health when we know that being healthy is the best way to curb disease."

Overall, the number developing all forms of cancer rose slightly, up 2.1 per cent to 284,560 in 2004.

However, mortality rates are declining and the proportion of cancer patients living for more than five years after diagnosis rose from 40 to 50 per cent. The top four types of cancer - breast, lung, bowel and prostate - account for more than half of all cases of the disease.

Prostate cancer saw the second biggest rise in cases after malignant melanoma.

But the 39 per cent increase over a decade is not thought to be caused by preventable risk factors and is blamed instead on better detection through prostate specific antigen testing.

The third biggest rise - of 33.5 per cent - was in mesothelioma cases. This cancer of the tissue lining is linked to industrial exposure to asbestos, the use of which is now banned in the UK.

Experts predict the mesothelioma epidemic will peak between 2010 and 2015 before declining rapidly.

There was a similar rise - of 33.4 per cent - in liver cancer. This is partially linked to alcohol intake and also to the hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses.

Breast cancer rates went up by 11 per cent with obesity raising the risk of the disease in post-menopausal women by 40 per cent.

The figures did, however, contain some good news. Rates of cervical cancer fell by 24 per cent thanks to a national screening programme.

And lung cancer rates are continuing to decrease, especially in men, as more and more smokers kick the habit.



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Is this surprising? I think not. The risk taking attitude is widespread, and smoking is still endemic.

- Philip, London, England



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[John266]

the wine is still same price and still just as good I heard

[cintrix]

That's from 2003.

[John266]

the wine to buy:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/02/eveningnews/main556620.shtml

[John266]

woops

[cintrix]

Supposedly, Oreos are loaded with trans fats.

[John266]

trans fat free I hope

[John266]

lol

[cintrix]

Does this mean we have to give up our Oreos?

[cintrix]

A morning jog and a cup of coffee might help protect you against skin cancer

lmao well that's because you will be so burned by the hot coffee spilling all over you that it will kill any cancer cells! ;>)

[John266]

Trans fats worse than ever
ANDRÉ PICARD

From Monday's Globe and Mail

July 30, 2007 at 9:50 AM EDT

It is well-established that consuming food laden with trans fats can clog the arteries, jacking up the risk of a heart attack.

But new Canadian research shows that the presence of trans fats in the blood system can also mess with the heart's rhythm, worsening the severity of a heart attack and jacking up the likelihood of death.

"It's like a double whammy," said Peter Light, a researcher at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute in Edmonton and lead author of the study.

"If you eat too much trans fat or saturated fat, you may predispose yourself to a heart attack. But these bad fats don't just clog your arteries, they are stored in your heart cells, and that can affect how the heart beats.

"This can really worsen the condition of a patient suffering a heart attack."

Trans fatty acids - partially hydrogenated oils used to give texture and a longer shelf life - are found in processed foods including coffee whitener, doughnuts, microwave popcorn and frozen pizza. They're also in the oils used to make fries, fried chicken and other restaurant fare. Trans fats are responsible for between 3,000 and 5,000 deaths annually from cardiovascular disease, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

The new study, published in the European Molecular Biology Journal, helps elucidate how trans fats kill. Dr. Light said the heart is essentially an electric organ, and it uses fat as an energy source. A wave of electricity passes through the heart once per second, and each time calcium is pumped in and then out again.

Dr. Light, an electrophysiologist, found that when trans fats (and to a lesser extent saturated fats) build up in the heart cells, they can affect the crucial flow of calcium.

In particular, bad fats interfere with a protein called the sodium-calcium exchanger. "Its role is to pump calcium out," Dr. Light said. "But during a heart attack, it pumps calcium in."

The greater the buildup of calcium during a heart attack, the more severe the outcome. That's because an accumulation of calcium can cause arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat) or cardiac arrest.

Dr. Light said this troubling effect on the sodium-calcium exchanger was not seen with polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. These so-called good fats are liquid at room temperature, such as olive oil and canola oil. Those that are solid or semi-solid, such as lard, butter, coconut oil, margarine and partially hydrogenated oils, are bad fats.

While the research was done in a lab, at a molecular level, it has some potential practical implications. For example, Dr. Light said, patients scheduled for heart surgery could be advised to cut out all trans fats for a few weeks before the operation as a way of reducing the risk of a poor outcome.

He said the research also has implications for the impact of trans fats on diabetes and hypertension, because similar mechanisms are at work.

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[John266]

Doctor charged with hastening death of donor
Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

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A San Francisco transplant surgeon was charged Monday with prescribing overdoses of medication to speed up the death of a man at a San Luis Obispo hospital and harvest his organs.

Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, 33, prescribed excessive amounts of morphine and Ativan and injected the topical antiseptic Betadine into Ruben Navarro's stomach in February 2006, prosecutors in San Luis Obispo County said. Navarro, 26, who was severely disabled mentally and physically, had suffered respiratory and cardiac arrest and had been taken off life support, authorities said.

In order for doctors to harvest organs, a patient must be declared dead within 30 minutes of being taken off life support. Navarro, however, died eight hours after being removed from a respirator and his organs were never recovered.

Roozrokh is believed to be the first doctor in California ever accused of criminal charges in connection with procuring organs. He faces felony counts of dependent adult abuse, administering a harmful substance and unlawful prescription of a controlled substance.

A warrant has been issued for his arrest. If convicted of all three counts, he could be sentenced to eight years in state prison.

Roozrokh, who at the time was a surgeon with Kaiser Permanente's now-closed kidney transplant center in San Francisco, was in San Luis Obispo as part of a team that harvests organs of people who have just died.

State law forbids transplant doctors from treating potential organ donors before they are declared dead.

Kaiser placed Roozrokh on administrative leave Monday, officials at the health care group said. He voluntarily stopped seeing patients last year, after Navarro's family first accused him of trying to speed up the sick man's death.

Roozrokh's attorney, M. Gerald Schwartzbach of Mill Valley, said in a statement that the charges against the surgeon are "unfounded and ill advised" and said his client has been "the subject of an 18-month witch hunt."

"Nothing that Dr. Roozrokh did or said at the hospital that night adversely affected the quality of Mr. Navarro's life or contributed to Mr. Navarro's eventual death," Schwartzbach said. "Dr. Roozrokh did not commit any crime."

Navarro had been living in a nursing home when he suffered a respiratory and cardiac arrest Jan. 29, 2006. He was in a coma when he was taken to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo. Doctors there said he had suffered irreversible brain damage and he was put on a respirator, but he was not declared brain dead.

His mother gave approval to donate Navarro's organs, and on Feb. 3 the California Transplant Donor Network sent a surgical team, including Roozrokh, to San Luis Obispo to handle the organ recovery.

Earlier this year, the coroner's officer in San Luis Obispo County reported that Navarro had died of natural causes.

Navarro's mother filed a wrongful-death lawsuit last year against Roozrokh and several others, including the hospital, Kaiser and the California Transplant Donor Network, claiming that her son had been removed from life support without her permission and had been given lethal doses of drugs.

Kaiser officials said Monday that Roozrokh had been acting independently of their health care organization when he went to San Luis Obispo. Officials with the California Transplant Donor Network would not comment on the case.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. E-mail Erin Allday at [e-mail].

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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[John266]

Caffeine Plus Exercise May Offer Sun Protection


By Amy Norton

NEW YORK JUL 30, 2007 (Reuters Health) - A morning jog and a cup of coffee might help protect you against skin cancer, if the results of new animal research can be applied to humans.

In experiments with mice, researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey found that a combination of exercise and caffeine boosted the number of sunlight-damaged skin cells that self-destructed -- a process called apoptosis.

Apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death, is part of the body's natural defense against cancer; cells that accumulate irreparable genetic damage kill themselves off so they do not develop into tumors.

The new findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that caffeine and exercise may work together to promote apoptosis.

The study involved four groups of hairless mice. For two weeks, one group exercised on a running wheel, another drank caffeinated water, a third exercised and consumed caffeine, and the fourth did neither.

All of the animals were exposed to ultraviolet-B radiation, the component of sunlight primarily responsible for sunburns.

The researchers found that the exercise group and the caffeine group each experienced a modest increase in apoptosis of UVB-damaged skin cells.

However, the combination of the two enhanced apoptosis of these cells. In fact, the effect was "more than additive," meaning exercise and caffeine somehow worked synergistically to boost each other's effects.

Whether the results might translate to humans is not yet known. But some past studies suggest the mouse findings "may have human relevance," Dr. Allan H. Conney, the study's senior author, told Reuters Health.

Population studies have linked coffee drinking to lower risks of non-melanoma skin cancer, as well as lower risks of liver cancer and certain other tumors, explained Conney, who directs Rutgers' Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research.

Similarly, regular exercise has been tied to lower risks of certain cancers.

Among the next steps is to see whether the exercise-caffeine combo lowers the incidence of actual skin tumors in animals. In previous work, Conney and his colleagues found that caffeine or exercise alone can do this.

It will also be important to uncover the mechanisms at work, according to Conney. One of the "intriguing" findings in the current study, he said, was that exercise and caffeine decreased the animals' body fat.

There's evidence that fat tissue produces substances that impede damaged body cells from apoptosis, and it's possible that decreased fat stores help explain the benefits that caffeine and exercise had on apoptosis, Conney noted.

However, he added, this appears to be only "part of the story," and other mechanisms must play a role.

So should you add a coffee to your morning run? According to Conney, regular exercise is certainly a good habit to develop, but it's too soon for people to take up coffee drinking for cancer prevention. Caffeine can have negative effects, such as increased blood pressure.

However, healthy people who already drink a modest amount of coffee need not feel they should give it up.

"I think coffee, in moderation, can be a good thing," Conney said.

SOURCE:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 31, 2007.



"Reuters content is the intellectual property of Reuters Limited. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable

[John266]

omg!!:

Kids Huff Freon to Get High

July 30, 2007 06:42 PM EDT












Heartland News more>>

Deadly Shooting & Armed Robbery

Fire at Meadow Heights School

ID Chip Implants in Humans

Making the Most of Mounds

Tripod the Therapy Dog

Pemiscot County Dog Rescue

Teenagers Save Drowning Man

Kids Huff Freon to Get High

Firefighters Remember Fallen Brother

Stabbing in Cape Girardeau





Kids Huff Freon to Get High
By: Arnold Wyrick

CARBONDALE, Ill. - During these 'dog days of summer' air conditioning units are working overtime trying to keep homes and offices cooled down.

But many of those air conditioning units are becoming the target of kids wanting to drain the freon gas from inside and inhale it, sometimes with deadly results.

"They feel a euphoria, light-headiness and they may pass out. But it's that euphoria that they're going after. Unfortunately what these kids don't know is there is long term damage to the body from breathing in freon gas," said Doctor Donna Carney at Memorial Hospital of Carbondale.

Authorities say the way the kids are using the gas to get high is by placing a plastic bag over there head. Then they fill the bag with freon gas. It's heavier then oxygen so it forces the oxygen out of the bag, leaving only the dangerous gas.

"Even the first time that they would do it they could die. The long term if they continue to do this is memory problems, they can suffer permanent liver damage, kidney damage, lung damage and brain damage. And all is this is irreversible," Doctor Carney said.

For about $30 you can buy a locking mechanism to prevent access to the Freon in your air conditioner.

Signs of huffing include frostbite or whiteness around the nose and slurring of speech. There could also be changes in behavior such as lying, running away or stealing.

Taking Freon from another person's air conditioning unit is considered theft.

[John266]

California Warns Of Pesticide-Contaminated Ginger From ChinaLast update: 7/30/2007 3:12:31 PMSACRAMENTO (AP)--The California Department of Public Health is warning U.S. consumers not to eat ginger imported from China because it might contain a dangerous pesticide. The ginger was distributed to Albertson's and Save Mart stores in Northern California by Christopher Ranch of Gilroy, Calif., Public Health Director Mark Horton said in a notice issued Sunday. Monitors with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation detected the presence of aldicarb sulfoxide, which isn't approved for use on ginger in California. The department said it has received no reports of illness from customers who ate the contaminated ginger. Signs of aldicarb poisoning in humans usually appear within the first hour after exposure, producing flu-like symptoms such as nausea, headache and blurred vision. Higher levels of poisoning also can cause dizziness, excessive sweating and salivation, vomiting, diarrhea, breathing problems and muscle stiffness and twitching, health officials said. State officials and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were working to trace the ginger from its importer, Modern Trading Inc. of Alhambra, Calif., to determine other places where the ginger might have been distributed. (END) Dow Jones NewswiresJuly 30, 2007 15:12 ET (19:12 GMT)Copyright © 2007 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.

[John266]

MySpace deletes 29,000 sex offenders
Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:14PM EDT
Email | Print | Digg | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeFeatured Broker sponsored link
Power. Price. Service. No Compromises.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Popular Internet social network MySpace said on Tuesday it detected and deleted 29,000 convicted sex offenders on its service, more than four times the figure it had initially reported.

The company, owned by media conglomerate News Corp, said in May it had deleted about 7,000 user profiles that belonged to convicted offenders. MySpace attracts about 60 million unique visitors monthly in the United States.

The new information was first revealed by U.S. state authorities after MySpace turned over information on convicted sex offenders it had removed from the service.

"The exploding epidemic of sex offender profiles on MySpace -- 29,000 and counting -- screams for action," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement.

Blumenthal, who led a coalition of state authorities to lobby MySpace for more stringent safeguards for minors, and other state AGs have demanded the service begin verifying a user's age and require parental permission for minors.

The minimum age to register on MySpace is 14.

"We're pleased that we've successfully identified and removed registered sex offenders from our site and hope that other social networking sites follow our lead," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a statement.

The service has come under attack over the past year after some of its young members fell prey to adult predators posing as minors. The families of several teenage girls sexually assaulted by MySpace members sued the service in January for failing to safeguard its young members.

Late last year, it struck a partnership with background verification company Sentinel Tech Holdings Corp. to co-develop the first U.S. national database of convicted sex offenders to make it easier to track offenders on the Internet.

Convicted sex offenders are required by law to register their contact information with local authorities. But the information has only been available on regional databases, making nationwide searches difficult.

As of May, there were about 600,000 registered sex offenders in the United States.

[John266]

http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/24-07-2007/95191-civilization-0

[John266]

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Video podcastsAudio podcastsFDA says food recall is urgent health threat
Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:49PM EDT
Email | Print | Digg | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeFeatured Broker sponsored link
Free practice account at FOREX.comBy Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recall of canned meat products and dog food made at a Georgia plant due to botulism fears could involve tens of millions of cans that pose an urgent public health threat, U.S. officials said on Monday.

U.S. food regulators appealed to consumers and retailers to find and dispose of the cans.

Two people in Texas and two others in Indiana remain seriously ill and hospitalized with botulism poisoning associated with eating Castleberry's Hot Dog Chili Sauce, officials said.

"This is a very big recall," David Elder of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's office of regulatory affairs told reporters, deeming it an "urgent public health matter."

"These products can hurt people. And they have to be off the store shelves. And consumers have to discard any that they have at home," Elder added.

U.S. officials said an outbreak of botulism due to a commercially canned food is extremely rare and has not occurred in the United States in more than three decades.

Castleberry's Food Co. said on Saturday it had voluntarily expanded a recall of hot dog chili sauce and canned meat products originally announced on July 18 due to a risk of botulinum toxin, a bacterium that can cause botulism.

Castleberry's is a unit of Connors Bros. Income Fund's Bumble Bee Foods division.

The recall by Castleberry's originally affected 10 products. The expanded move involves more than 80 types of stew, chili, hash and other products as well as pet food sold under a variety of brand names.

"You're talking about tens of millions of cans that may have been involved. That doesn't mean that's how many are still out on shelves. But that's sort of the scale," added Robert Bracket, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

TRACING SHIPMENTS

U.S. regulators are trying to track down distribution records from the company, Bracket said, adding that officials view this as a nationwide recall.

Botulism is a potentially fatal illness. Symptoms include dizziness, double vision, difficulty in breathing and abdominal problems.

The cans that sickened the four people were produced at the plant on May 7 and May 8, officials said.

Connors Bros. said it will keep the plant in Augusta, Georgia, closed until given the all-clear by health officials.

"Production will not resume until FDA is satisfied that all conditions that resulted in this recall and these dangerous products have been corrected," Elder said, adding that the FDA last inspected the plant in February.

Officials said 16 out of 17 cans that have been tested have turned up positive for the bacterium that causes botulism.

"The decision was made to add an additional layer of protection and to assure the highest margin of safety by recalling all products produced on this line, regardless of the best-by date on the can," said Dave Melbourne, Castleberry's senior vice president.

Consumers with any questions are urged to view Castleberry's Web site www.castleberrys.com. A toll-free hotline is also available at 1-800-203-4412 or 1-888-203-8446.

(Additional reporting by Shallima Maharaj and Scott Anderson in Toronto

[John266]

RESEARCH: Soft drinks -- even diet ones -- may be linked to heart disease, diabetes... Developing...

[John266]

warning shock:
Calif's San Francisco Bay Area Hit By 4.1 EarthquakeLast update: 7/20/2007 8:03:47 AMSAN FRANCISCO (AP)--People throughout California's Bay Area were awakened by small an earthquake Friday morning. The U.S. Geological Survey said an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude 4.1 was recorded about two miles northeast of Oakland, Calif. The quake was described by one Oakland resident as lasting about 10 seconds. It was also felt across the bay in San Francisco. (END) Dow Jones NewswiresJuly 20, 2007 08:03 ET (12:03 GMT)

[John266]

ANOTHER EXECUTION ON THE WAY:

Police Detain Beijing Reporter; Faked Story On Cardboard BunsLast update: 7/19/2007 4:02:16 PMBEIJING (AP)--Police have detained a Beijing reporter for faking a hidden camera report about street vendors selling breakfast buns stuffed with chemically treated cardboard, the apologetic broadcaster said amid mounting concern over China's poor food safety record. The revelation follows a spate of real food scares involving toxic fish, tainted pork and egg yolks colored with a cancer-causing dye that have harmed China's reputation as an exporter and alarmed people at home. Allegedly shot with a hidden camera, the story was first broadcast on Beijing Television's Life Channel on July 8 and then shown again on China Central Television last week. It created a buzz on the Internet, with netizens flooding chatrooms with comments expressing shock and disgust. On the YouTube Web site, the video had been viewed more than 6,000 times by Thursday. Beijing Television apologized to the public during an evening news broadcast Wednesday and said the creator of the fake news report, identified only by his surname, Zi, had been detained by police but did not say when. A copy of the broadcast was obtained by AP Television News on Thursday. "He used deceptive means to get the footage on the air," said news anchor Wang Ye, without giving specifics. "The Beijing Public Security Bureau has taken the criminal suspect, Zi, into custody and he will be severely dealt with according to law." Zi's footage appeared to show a makeshift kitchen where people made fluffy buns stuffed with 60% cardboard that had been softened in a bath of caustic soda and 40% fatty pork. An investigation revealed that in mid-June, Zi brought meat, flour, cardboard and other ingredients to a downtown Beijing neighborhood and had four migrant workers make the buns for him while he filmed the process, Beijing Television explained. It said Zi "gave them the idea" of mincing softened cardboard and adding it to the buns. The newscaster said the station was "profoundly sorry" for the fake report and its "vile impact on society." It vowed to prevent inaccurate news coverage in the future. The report prompted Beijing's health authorities to carry out a spot check of more than two dozen vendors selling the pork buns - a common breakfast in China. None were found to contain cardboard. Allegedly shot with a hidden camera, the story was first broadcast on Beijing Television's Life Channel July 8 and then shown again on China Central Television last week. ("Police Detain Beijing Reporter; Faked Story On Cardboard Buns," published at 0734 GMT, gave the wrong date for when the story was broadcast.) (END) Dow Jones NewswiresJuly 19, 2007 16:02 ET (20:02 GMT)

[John266]

yay

Senate Panel Approves TV Indecency ActLast update: 7/19/2007 2:55:10 PM(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones NewswiresJuly 19, 2007 14:55 ET (18:55 GMT)Copyright © 2007 MarketWatch

[John266]

HAH MY 15 YR OLD GIRL IF YOU CAN CALL HER THAT I HAD TO HAVE THE SHERIFF COME GET HERE...NICE HUH?

SHE IS DR. JEKLE 80% TIME

MY HYDE 20%

[cintrix]

Ugh! I am so glad I had girls!

[John266]

horror
Circumcision Atrocity Suit Filed Against Coles County HospitalLast update: 7/18/2007 12:25:00 PMMalpractice by Ob-Gyn Caused Lifetime Damages to Infant MATTOON, Ill., July 18, 2007 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The day after birth on February 15, 2007, an infant at Sarah Bush Hospital had a standard circumcision procedure performed by Dr. Sherif Malek. However, what should have been a forgotten memory for the boy became a lifelong nightmare. Due to negligence, Dr. Malek severed the entire glans, commonly termed the head, of the infant's penis. Today, Jerry A. Latherow of Latherow Law Office on behalf of plaintiffs Boy Doe (the infant) and his mother, Jane Doe, filed a complaint for compensation for damages against Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System, Inc, 1000 Health Center Drive, Mattoon, IL, and Sherif Malek, D.O. in the Circuit Court of Coles County, Illinois. The infant was a healthy seven pound newborn who was delivered without complications on February 14, 2007. The following day, a routine circumcision was performed on the infant by Dr. Malek using a Mogen clamp, a metal, hinge-shaped device used during the procedure. At the completion of the circumcision, hospital records indicated there was significant bleeding. Inspection of the penis revealed nearly all of the glans had been amputated at the time of the circumcision. Three months later, the infant required penile skin transfer surgery at the University of Illinois, with need for future procedures, some of which are only appropriate at the age of puberty. According to medical expert witness, Dr. David Zbaraz with Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, who reviewed the Sarah Bush medical records of the infant, "The Mogen clamp when used properly cannot amputate a male infant's glans. The injury to this boy was completely preventable." Across the United States major settlements have been made for botched circumcisions. In 1991, a hospital in Atlanta, GA, agreed to pay $22.8 million because of negligence during a circumcision. Also in New York City a boy received $1.2 million for a circumcision error, and in Lake Charles, LA a family received $2.75 million after a boy's penis was burned during a routine circumcision. "Through simple carelessness at Sarah Bush Hospital, a boy will face physical disfigurement and psychological trauma throughout his life," said Jerry A. Latherow, the attorney representing Boy Doe and Jane Doe, "Unfortunately, caps on medical malpractice cases in Illinois will prevent the boy from recovering more than $500,000 against the physician for the lifelong deformity and urological care, and any associated psychological problems. Sadly, the hospital's liability for such damages is capped at $1 million. Even before the case is tried, a mother and her child have been robbed." A complete copy of the complaint is available upon request. About Jerry A. Latherow Jerry A. Latherow is a veteran trial lawyer who has attained verdicts and settlements for his clients in cases involving medical malpractice, vehicular and construction liability, and airplane crash cases. In 2003, he was recognized by the National Law Journal as obtaining one of the top 100 verdicts in the country.
CONTACTS: Jerry A. Latherow, attorney for plaintiffs: 312-372-0052 (o), 312-520-0052 (c) Patty Peterson, Sarah Bush Hospital: [phone] Tom Ciesielka, TC Public Relations: 312-422-1333SOURCE Latherow Law Office
Jerry A. Latherow, attorney for plaintiffs, [phone], cell, [phone];or Patty Peterson of Sarah Bush Hospital, [phone]; or Tom Ciesielka of TCPublic Relations, [phone], [e-mail], for Latherow Law OfficeCopyright (C) 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

[John266]

this is also done to heating oil ripping us off 15% more with expansion

[John266]

ExxonMobil Pump Decals Will Admit 'Hot Fuel' Ripoff to ConsumersLast update: 7/17/2007 6:04:00 PMSANTA MONICA, Calif., July 17, 2007 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Group Demands the Next Step: Fix the Problem ExxonMobil will put decals on its gasolne pumps in California and Arizona acknowledging that "hot fuel" may not deliver the full value of a gallon of gasoline, according to a report in the industry publication Oil Express. Exxon took the step to protect itself from class-action lawsuits that accuse marketers of defrauding drivers with "hot fuel," said the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. FTCR said Exxon, the world's largest oil company, should have announced plans to fix the problem, which would have gained its brand market share and consumer confidence. Instead, said FTCR, the company is just fending off lawsuits and making drivers angrier. "A cheap decal is like a tobacco pack warning," said Judy Dugan, research director of OilWatchdog.org and FTCR. "It may be Teflon against lawsuits, but it offers no protection to consumers. The cost of each decal may be less than the 50 cents a fill-up that consumers are paying for ghost gas," the lost energy of fuel sold at high temperatures." The Oil Express report says the wording of the decal will be: "This device dispenses motor fuel by volume measured in gallons. It does not adjust the volume for variations in the temperature of the fuel. The temperature of motor fuel affects the energy content of each gallon dispensed." "The loss is perhaps 50 cents per hot tankful for individual motorists, and the collective loss to motorists in California alone is estimated at about $450 million a year in California," said Dugan. "Exxon can't evade its responsibility to sell gasoline fairly and honesty with a decal essentially saying 'Yeah, we rip you off and what are you going to do about it.'" Exxon's action follows a similar decal warning ordered by refiner Tesoro at its California stations, including the small USA Petroleum chain and more than 250 Shell stations recently acquired by Tesoro. At the time, other companies denied that they would follow suit, said FTCR. U.S. manufacturer Gilbarco already makes a gasoline pump nozzle that measures the temperature of gasoline as it leaves the pump, and it is widely used in Canada (where sellers benefit from lower gasoline temperatures). The head of the California Weights and Measures board has stated that the pump may be sold and used in California, but Gilbarco has declined to offer it for sale. Gasoline is adjusted for temperature variations from the national standard of 60 degrees when it is sold by the refinery to distributors, and when it is sold again to retailers. At each stage, the buyer receives extra gasoline to make up for expansion and energy loss if the fuel is over 60 degrees. However, the fuel is sold without any temperature adjustment to motorists, causing an annual loss of $2.3 billion to drivers nationally. In California, the statewide average year-round temperature of gasoline is over 74 degrees, according to a federal study. "Sales must be honest to be fair. Yet the industry from the refinery level on down cheats both motorists and taxpayers by pretending that fuel is 60 degrees in order to fatten their own profits," said Dugan. The Oil Express article said Exxon would require the decal at its company-owned and franchised stations, and would "encourage" others that sell the Exxon brand to display the decal. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) is California's leading nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization. For more information, visit us on the web at: SOURCE Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights
Judy Dugan of FTCR, [phone], Cell: [phone]Copyright (C) 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved ********************************************************************** As of Friday, 07-13-2007 23:59, the latest Comtex SmarTrend® Alert, an automated pattern recognition system, indicated an UPTREND on 02-02-2007 for XOM @ $74.95. For more information on SmarTrend, contact your market data provider or go to SmarTrend is a registered trademark of Comtex News Network, Inc. Copyright © 2004-2007 Comtex News Network, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 MarketWatch

[Rager]

Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty Tonight,
Siemens CT Scanner Reveals Mysteries inside Egyptian Relic
German Researchers Using a SOMATOM(R) Sensation 64 Computed Tomography Scanner Will Present Their Work Tonight on the National Geographic Channel Special: Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty
Jul 16, 2007 2:50:00 PM
Copyright Business Wire 2007
MALVERN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The bust of Nefertiti stored at Berlin's Altes Museum, is one of the most renowned works of ancient Egyptian sculpture. Fifteen years ago, a computed tomography (CT) scan of the bust revealed that a second structure was hidden inside. This structure was presumed to be a cast of the subject's face, but the image resolution was too poor to be conclusive. With recent advances in CT scanning, researchers called for a repeat scan to document the structure within the bust. Results of the scan, which was conducted using a Siemens Medical Solutions (www.usa.siemens.com/medical) SOMATOM(R) Sensation 64-Slice CT, are included in a National Geographic Channel special that will premiere tonight.

"I have always been interested in the secret carried inside that bust. But it is also very difficult and hazardous to examine ancient artifacts without damaging them," said Prof. Dietrich Wildung, director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin.

With the help of one of Siemens' highest resolution CT scanners, Prof. Wildung and Alexander Huppertz, MD, head of the Imaging Science Institute in Berlin, as well as the National Geographic team, were able to X-ray the bust without damaging it.

"Our technology is intended to improve the medical care of patients around the world. However, we are happy to contribute to efforts that explain the mysteries of archaeology," said Bernd Montag, president, Siemens Medical Solutions, Computed Tomography. "We scanned the mummy of Tutankhamen two years ago and we are now helping with another ancient Egyptian treasure."

Researchers who conducted the original CT scan of Nefertiti assumed that the bust's limestone core would more accurately approximate the subject's face. After the facial mold was cast, the limestone core was coated with plaster and painted. Prof. Wildung said that the portrait on the coat of plaster is not very representative and that the bust itself is of greater value in determining the features of the subject.

Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty, premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel, check local listings for more information.

About the Imaging Science Institute, Berlin

The Imaging Science Institute Charite Berlin - Siemens (ISI) is a research institute for imaging diagnostics. Since October 2004, the newest technologies of diagnostic imaging, such as computed or magnetic resonance tomography are developed further in a clinical environment under the scientific leadership of Prof. Bernd Hamm in Berlin Mitte in cooperation with the Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin and Siemens Medical Solutions.

About Siemens Medical Solutions

Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) is one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. Recent acquisitions in the area of in-vitro diagnostics - such as Diagnostic Products Corporation and Bayer Diagnostics - mark a significant milestone for Siemens as it becomes the first full service diagnostics company. Employing more than 41,000 people worldwide and operating in over 130 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 8.23 billion EUR, orders of 9.33 billion EUR and group profit of 1.06 billion EUR for fiscal 2006 (Sept. 30). Further information can be found by visiting www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.

Source: Siemens Medical Solutions



----------------------------------------------
Siemens Medical Solutions
Mark Palacio
610-448-1477
[e-mail]

[John266]

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/07/12/games-nintendo-wii-tech-cx_0712nintendo.html

[John266]

nope

[exisnet]

Wow, executed... China doesn't take any crap

[John266]

he paid
China Ex-Food and Drug Chief Executed

By ALEXA OLESEN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 10, 2007; 2:24 AM



BEIJING -- China on Tuesday executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog who had become a symbol of the country's wide-ranging problems on product safety.

Zheng Xiaoyu's execution was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency.

"The few corrupt officials of the (State Food and Drug Administration) are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems," SFDA spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China's track record on food and drug safety.

"We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases. We should step up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now and what we will do in the future," Yan said about Zheng and a separate case involving Cao Wenzhuang, the administration's former pharmaceutical registration department director.

Zheng was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths and other substandard medicines. Cao was given a death sentence last month with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty.

Such suspended death sentences usually are commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.

Zheng's death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and likely indicates the leadership's determination to confront the country's dire product safety record.

Yan said the food and drug administration was working to tighten its safety procedures and create a more transparent operating environment. But the administration acknowledged that its supervision of food and drug safety is unsatisfactory and that it has been slow to tackle the problem, but vowed to improve.

"As a developing country, China's current food and drug safety situation is not very satisfactory because supervision of food and drug safety started late. Its foundation is weak so the supervision of food and drug safety is not easy," it said in a statement at the start of the news conference.

China has been under pressure domestically and internationally to improve its quality controls after a series of health scares attributed to substandard Chinese products, including exported tainted food and fake drugs.

Chinese officials already have said the country faces social unrest and a further tarnished image abroad unless it improves the quality and safety of its food and medicine.

The industry regulator, the State Food and Drug Administration, has announced a series of measures to tighten safety controls and closed factories where illegal chemicals or other problems were found.

Fears abroad over Chinese-made products were sparked last year by the deaths of dozens of people in Panama who took medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol imported from China. It was passed off as harmless glycerin.

In North America earlier this year, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats.

Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

Chinese-made toothpaste also has been banned in a handful of countries due to its content of diethylene glycol. However, there have been no reports of health problems stemming from the product. China has no guideline banning the chemical in toothpaste, and the government says it is harmless in small amounts.

The list of food scares within China over the past year includes drug-tainted fish, banned Sudan dye used to color egg yolks red, and pork tainted with clenbuterol, a banned feed additive.

China also has stepped up its inspections of imported products and said some U.S. products are not safe.

In the latest case, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday that a shipment of sugar-free drink mix from the United States had been rejected for having too much red dye.

Last week, China's food safety watchdog said almost 20 percent of products made for consumption within China were found to be substandard in the first half of 2007. Canned and preserved fruit and dried fish were the most problematic, primarily because of excessive bacteria and additives, the agency said.

© 2007 The Associated Press

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[John266]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=466395&in_page_id=17...